The present invention relates to a roof structure of a vehicle.
A roof structure with a drip channel has been prevailingly adopted for a vehicle such as passenger car or bonnet truck.
An example of such roof structure with a drip channel is shown in FIGS. 14 to 17.
More specifically, for a door opening 2 in a vehicle body 1 as shown in FIG. 14, a drip channel 4 is spot-welded at 5 as shown in FIG. 15 to a side outer member 3 which provides a lateral surface of car cabin. A roof member 6 is placed on the side outer member 3 from right above and is spot-welded at 7 to the drip channel 4.
A pillar 8 as shown in FIG. 14 is provided such that the roof member 6 placed on the side outer member 3 from right above is coupled to the member 3 at 9 by brazing or arc brazing as shown in FIGS. 16 and 17.
In the figures, reference numeral 10 denotes a side inner member.
With the above arrangement, a boundary between the members 6 and 3 are vertically coupled together at the pillar 8 so that placement of the member 6 on the member 3 from right above causes no structural problems; however, there are problems in that the drip channel 4 is needed to mount the roof member 6 and that troublesome working such as brazing or arc brazing is required.
For this reason, a roof structure with no drip channel has been proposed and employed in recent years.
In this roof structure with no drip channel, as shown in FIGS. 18 to 21, a boundary 13 between a roof member 11 and a side outer member 12 is at a roof 14. The members 11 and 12 are respectively formed with groove-defining side walls 15 and 17 and groove-defining bottoms 16 and 18. The bottom 16 of the roof member 11 is placed on and spot-welded to the bottom 18 of the side outer member 12 to provide the boundary 13 in the form of a groove 20 substantially extending in a longitudinal direction 19 of the vehicle. The groove 20 is filled with molding (not shown) made of rubber or synthetic resin to hide the boundary 13.
Thus, the use of the roof structure with no drip channel eliminates the need for the drip channel 4 as well as troublesome working such as brazing or arc brazing.
However, the roof structure with no drip channel as described has a below-mentioned disadvantage.
Generally, a vehicle has, on its front and rear sides, windows 21 (particularly, a substantially vertical window on the rear side in the case of a bonnet truck). Accordingly, the members 11 and 12 must be provided at their longitudinal ends with unexposed surface portions 26 and 27 as shown in FIG. 19 which comprise inner bents 22 and 23 for engagement with a pane of glass for the window 21 and lower margins 24 and 25 for support of the glass pane, respectively.
The unexposed surface portions 26 and 27 are inevitably receded relative to exposed surface portions 28 and 29 of the roof 14. Hence, there is a fair possibility that the roof member 11 cannot be placed on the side outer member 12 from right above since the unexposed surface portion 26 of the roof member 11 interferes at 30 with the exposed and unexposed portions 29 and 27 of the member 12.
The present invention was made in view of the above and has its object to provide a roof structure for a vehicle in which a roof member can be placed on a side outer member with no trouble.
In a first aspect, the present invention provides a roof structure for a vehicle which comprises a side outer member and a roof member combined at side portions thereof to provide a groove extending over at least midway of a boundary between said members, said groove being defined by overlapped portions of said members, boundary portion on at least either of front and back ends of the members being provided by abutments on said members which are not overlapped to each other.
In a second aspect, the present invention provides a roof structure for a vehicle which comprises a side outer member and a roof member combined at side portions thereof to provide a groove extending over at least midway of a boundary between said members, said groove being defined by overlapped portions of said members, the side portion of the roof member being diagonally cut out to provide a diagonally cut portion downwardly directed toward the center axis of the roof member such that a corner defined by the cut portion and exposed and unexposed surface portions of the roof member is substantially aligned with a corner defined by the exposed and unexposed surface portions of the side outer member, said unexposed surface portions of said members having abutments which are not overlapped to each other.
In a third aspect, the present invention provides a roof structure for vehicle which comprises a side outer member and a roof member combined at side portions thereof to provide a groove extending over a boundary between said members, parts of an inner bent and a lower margin constituting an unexposed surface portion of the roof member being cut out to provide a cut-out such that in use a lower edge of said cut-out is spaced apart from an edge of a groove-defining portion of the side outer member toward a center axis of the vehicle, an inner bent and a lower margin constituting an unexposed surface portion of the outer side member being extended to provide an extension toward the center axis of the vehicle, said inner bents and said lower margins of said unexposed surface portions of said members being mutually overlapped with those of said roof members being inside.
In the above-mentioned first aspect, provision of the abutments on the exposed and/or unexposed portions of the members at the boundary portion causes the members not to be vertically overlapped to each other at the boundary portion. Hence, the roof member can be placed on the side outer member from right above with no trouble since the unexposed surface portion of the roof member does not interfere with the exposed and unexposed surface portions of the underlying side outer member.
In the above-mentioned second aspect, the unexposed portion of the roof member is not vertically overlapped with the exposed and unexposed surface portions of the side outer member since a diagonally cut portion downwardly directed toward the center axis of the roof member is provided such that the corner defined by the cut portion and the exposed and unexposed surface portions of the roof member is substantially aligned with the corner defined by the exposed and unexposed surface portions of the side outer member, said unexposed surface portions of the members having the abutments which are not overlapped to each other and can be abutted to each other in a widthwise direction. This enables the roof member to be placed on the side outer member from right above without any trouble since the unexposed portion of the roof member does not interfere with the exposed and unexposed portions of the underlying side outer member.
In the above-mentioned third aspect, the roof member can be placed on the side outer member without any trouble since the unexposed portion of the roof member does not interfere with the underlying side outer member. This is due to the fact that parts of the inner bent and the lower margin constituting the unexposed portion of the roof member is cut out to provide the cut-out such that in use the lower edge of said cut-out is spaced apart from the edge of the groove-defining portion of the side outer member toward the center axis of the vehicle, the inner bent and the lower margin constituting the unexposed portion of the outer side member being extended to provide the extension toward the center axis of the vehicle, said inner bents and said lower margins of said unexposed surface portions of said members being mutually overlapped with those of said roof members being inside. No putty sealer or the like is needed to apply since there is no gap between the unexposed surface portions of the roof and side outer members.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in conjunction with the drawings.